I liked this episode. The concept was good although it suffered from the general flaws of the first season.
First of all it was a happy reuniting of two actors who played in Star Trek II, Wrath of Khan. It gives credence to "The Next Generation" theme of the show so to speak. Merritt Butrick played Kirk's son in the movie and Judd Scott played Khan's right hand man, although my mother always though he was Khan's son because of the way he mourned him specially when he died. I always liked that idea - it would make the "Next Generation" thing even better - but I don't think it's accurate.
In this episode Judd Scott plays a representative of the planet Onara and Butrick is an inhabitant of Brecka. They are neighboring planets in this system which seems overdone since, judging by their faces, they're clearly cousin races. It makes a person wonder why they weren't just two civilizations that lived on the same planet, especially when the plot is initially unfolded. The make-up job for the Onarans, by the way, is what the first version of Bajoran make-up was based on before it was smoothed over for DS9. It is good to see these actors again and in their familiar roles of good guy and bad guy.
Another bit of trivia: at the end when Picard and Crusher are leaving the cargo bay you see Tasha waving at the camera. This is the last episode that she filmed as a regular cast member even though her character's final episode will be the next one. They had intended to run Skin Of Evil first, but Denise Crosby liked this script and wanted to be a part of it.
There's not actually too much to the plot so the episode wastes a lot of time getting to the point. It begins with the Enterprise observing a solar flare and discovering that the flare is causing problems for a freighter ship from one of the two neighboring planets inhabited orbiting this star. This Brekan ship has mechanical problems as well and the only choice is to evacuate because they don't know what to do with the replacement part that the Enterprise offers to send them.
Only 4 of 6 people survive because they send the cargo first which is more valuable to them than anyone or anything else. The information that you get is that the cargo is medicine to treat the Breckans because they buy it but the payment was destroyed with the ship so the Onarans on board are refusing to give the medicine away.
Apparently they have natural electrical abilities and they start fighting over it and the Enterprise is drawn into the situation. This is a good thing, like I had mentioned in Home Soil. They didn't really want to be involved and just wanted to be rid of these people and tried to mediate as best they could with the information they had. We're getting closer to what an ideal episode of TNG would become with this premise.
They figure out by observation that the medicine is addictive and that the Breckans don't really need it anymore, but are only addicted to it and the Onarans are their "pushers" so to speak. It was in line with the anti-drug movement in America at the time and as much as I usually complain about shows seeming like an after school special, I really didn't mind with this one. I thought it was handled very well and it also showed the other "Miami Vice" side of things in which drug cartels were a big profitable business. The Enterprise not wanting to interfere too much is what made this episode solid and not so much like an after school special where the problem gets solved lessons are learned. It was open-ended and left room for discussion of the Prime Directive... sure we aren't to interfere, but not interfering could also change things as well. It was an excellent catch-22.
Things escalate and threats are made and the Onarans realize that the crew is onto them so they decide to give the drug away after all. However, the Breckans can't fix the freighter ship so there'll be no more transportation of drugs unless the Enterprise helps them. (This is why there needed to be two planets instead of just two civilizations on one planet.) This is also where Picard draws the line using the Prime Directive as an excuse to not help them since they know what's really going on with the addiction. They don't tell the Breckans what's wrong, but they'll now have no choice but to dry out naturally and realized that they were being manipulated all these years which will change the balance of the two worlds.
But here's where it loses credibility. Onara has no other industry except for refining the drug to sell to the Breckans. That means the ships used for transportation belong to the Breckans only... they had to have made them, right?... and somehow, even though they belong to these people, they don't know how to fix them. Perhaps they were left over from the shared past of the two planets when there really was a disease, but the odds that they never needed repair and maintenance until now are very long and it makes for kind of a thin climax to the story. But, like I said, these details were problematic in the first season and ultimately frustrating to a relatively decent episode.
Three and a half stars for being slow and having a few too many plot holes. But it's almost a 4 star episode, make no mistake.
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